you can't give away what you don't have...

i say it alot
i believe it

this morning i got nuthin to give away save for a neediness.....so coming to Him and praying as you grow up......you go to Him with all your needs and wants.

so i read 1 Samuel 13 and 2 Corinthians 12

Saul...oh Saul vs 9-13 tells of him getting tired of waiting for Samuel and doing what he thought was right, what he did sounded good and right but he was told to wait for Samuel. I don't know about you guys but i can get so tired of waiting. i can start convincing myself of things that God doesn't want from me when He's told me to wait. He put your parents over you for a reason, to look out for you, for your own good.......remember to wait, no matter how hard the waiting is. i hope you will be able to discern when you get older when He says 'wait'.....i pray for you all of a morning...Emma, Gabe, Millie, Nehemiah and this new one not yet born....that your relationships w/God through Christ be full of wonder and risk and joy.

and you parents...lynz and paul, dara and juno, jared and allison...i read this quote yesterday and i pray it stirs you up just as it stirred me....

TheFamilySpot Eric Haynes ...Is my primary goal as a parent focused on helping my kids discover a deep, personal relationship with Christ, or just controlling behaviors?

love you all Gigi

I am struggling today w/how hard IT is....
IT = trying /training to follow Christ
Smiling at myself in the suck, the hard, smiling that I keep wanting it EASY.

The smiling is good I think...it's a sense of Him tho convicting me w/out condemnation.

so remember it's all about Him guys and when it gets hard, well.....
He never promised us EASY
He promised...
promises to BE WITH Us.....

so today in the struggle i am gonna hold His hand.....it is ALWAYS right there, I sometimes in looking for EASY or what i want decide it's not enough for me this time. Today tho......gonna take it. :)

1 Samuel 1 & 2; Psalm 66; 2 Corinthians 7

Good morning kiddos.....
Your Gigi can sometimes be fraught with doubts and i don't always do a good job of trusting others with those doubts. My need for encouragement and control make me isolate more than is good, so if any of you have those traits or characteristics try/train very hard to overcome the pull to isolation.
I think alot of times my doubts come from comparing myself to others which probably if i could get down to the heart of it always is nothing but judging another?? I'm not sure that is always the case but worth looking at this morning and for you in your own journeys.

So this morning, I come to the Word and I hope that is a place you all will learn to love to come to as well. It's a place that He created for us, knowing us as He does. A place where what He's done and said is documented for us. You will hear many things about it as you grow. People might use it to influence you and my prayer is in that knowing it and Him for yourselves, you will be both easily influenced and turned back to Him and not influenced by people who simply want to control you and or your thinking. He made us to in Him think for ourselves. He gifted each of you with gifts, passions and talents that will grow you into the people He created you to be.

so i read this morning about Hannah and her desire for a child......children really are a blessing you know :) She prayed and bargained w/God (my interpretation) and was given a son Samuel. She in her bargain gave him (Samuel) at a young age to Eli a priest and he grew up in the temple, with Eli's sons who didn't behave very well at all......Hannah praised God for him, her prayer this morning in 1 Samuel 2 and then Psalm 66 really encouraged me this morning.
It is guys all about HIM and this morning I am thanking Him for all of YOU. That I have been allowed the awesomest privilege to be your Gigi, to pray for you, to love you. And that it is only because of Him that i have, blows me away. I am going to hang on tight to these two verses today....
1 Samuel 2:3....For God knows what's going on.
He takes the measure of everything that happens.
and Psalm 66 : ^5-6

Take a good look at God's wonders—
they'll take your breath away.
He converted sea to dry land;
travelers crossed the river on foot.
Now isn't that cause for a song?

⁷ Ever sovereign in his high tower, he keeps
his eye on the godless nations.
Rebels don't dare
raise a finger against him.

I am gonna hold on and an I will for me comes from the 2 Corinthians reading. Alot of times I am probably gonna say things that 'tick you off'....I am going to be pointing you to Him over and over and over, when I sense the Holy Spirit leading me to and when my love for you is overcome by my need for you to love me.....I am not supposed to need that you know, I am supposed to love you recklessly, well really I am supposed to love Him that way and won't be able to help myself in loving you and anyone else that way...but like I said I doubt and start to want what I want more. My hearts desire tho is to love you that way, His way and I will yield more and more to Him to help me. I will recklessly love today as YOU lead.
Anyway in pointing you to Him sometimes it's gonna hurt but it's those hurts I pray take you deeply into His . I know all this is confusing and maybe as I write here and you experience Him through Jesus yourself it will make sense....till then.....we keep trying/training to grow up in Him right??

2 Cor. 7: ^8-9 I know I distressed you greatly with my letter. Although I felt awful at the time, I don't feel at all bad now that I see how it turned out. The letter upset you, but only for a while. Now I'm glad—not that you were upset, but that you were jarred into turning things around. You let the distress bring you to God, not drive you from him. The result was all gain, no loss.

¹⁰Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets.

^11-13And now, isn't it wonderful all the ways in which this distress has goaded you closer to God? You're more alive, more concerned, more sensitive, more reverent, more human, more passionate, more responsible. Looked at from any angle, you've come out of this with purity of heart. And that is what I was hoping for in the first place when I wrote the letter. My primary concern was not for the one who did the wrong or even the one wronged, but for you—that you would realize and act upon the deep, deep ties between us before God. That's what happened—and we felt just great.

Just had breakfast w/a couple of lovelies.....and we talked about You and where You want us to go how You want us to get there. None of us knowing anything for sure save that we want to go where You desire and how easily other things (gods in our lives) get in the way of that.

An I will for me this week is to love recklessly, giving permission to those around me to remind me that love believes the best, allow Your Spirit to remind me.

To ask myself am I really loving recklessly or trying to control anothers destiny....life...choices. Ought to be a rough week.

To the newest one coming....due in June...

you are anticipated so much....you are the child of a son and finding out that feels different.....your name is the same as ours and yet you are a child of your Momma's family as well and sometimes i wonder if even more?? Now this is based on my experience as a Mother of a daughter, there is an old adage....A daughter is a daughter all of her life and a son is a son till he takes a wife......rings true.. not for good or bad but there is a difference in the experience. Praying for your momma and hers this morning. prayers of hope for the future. Read this Psalm this morning #49 and a verse in 1 Corinthians16, leading Papa and I into a good discussion around what are we resolute in?

Eyes open = alert ~ever vigilant and passionately patient
hold tight to your convictions = Jesus His grace and mercy/God's will and purpose and plan
give it all you've got = your gifts, from Him (one of mine is FAITH and I pray it be one of yours....Faith is HOPE in God, Abba, Papa, Jesus
resolute there in that FAITH
love without stopping~ if and when I DO believe all the above, He helps me, will help you...i know it...I will today fix my eyes on YOU and pray for all my kids and Grands and neighbors and family and......

1 Cor. 16: Keep your eyes open, hold tight to your convictions, give it all you've got, be resolute and love without stopping.

^{Ps 49: 7-9} Really! There's no such thing as self-rescue,
pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.
The cost of rescue is beyond our means,
and even then it doesn't guarantee
Life forever, or insurance
against the Black Hole.

I don't know how to do this lil one.....i pray every morning to simply w/resolute obedience simply love and i do trust that there is where He is taking me...i just sometimes measure love wrong.....
Anywhay that as per usual is more about me and i wanted to write to you, lil one.
Lil One, that is what your Papa has forever called your Momma. Anyway lil one you are being anticipated, a big word for ...there are alot of us waiting for you, wondering if you are a Jameson or a Brynn. just writing those names gives me goose bumps :)

Had a thought this morning guys.
As you grow up and come to your own journey's just wondering how that is going to look for you. I pray for you of a morning to be close to Him, to feel His love no matter how hard or difficult your circumstances may be.

I can say I want to know Him, to be close to Him and if I'm not working on that relationship I'm not, I don't. It's not going to be about what your mom and dad tell you, it IS going to be about what He tells you and your willingness to listen.

let's say you want to be a chef when you grow up. you go to the best school. France maybe, if you don't go to the classes, spend time w/master chef's , just being on the campus isn't going to do it. It's the same with our Father we have to spend time w/Him, listening to Him, reading His word. We GET TO do this.

I hope to rewrite this someday into something that makes more sense but for now just getting my heart out there to you. He made you to be in a relationship w/Him through His Son Jesus and He made you to do it in a way that will make sense to you. That will make His dreams inside of you come true, that will make you even more loving.

I look at you guys and see so much, you're a good looking bunch of course :) but it's when i see your hearts i get so excited. love you all Gigi

found this......

Jared and Paul and Juno....keep these in mind not only for your own marriages but for encouragement to the men your Sons become or who marry your daughters......

maybe i can get Dad to write his own in the years to come...;0